A public health approach to preventing violence in Kensington
The Cure Violence Model
Cure Violence Kensington is a community violence intervention program that treats gun violence as a public health issue. By training and employing Outreach Workers with a lived understanding of the communities they serve, the Cure Violence program disrupts the cycle of violence by interrupting and mediating conflicts within communities. The program concentrates on the most at-risk who typically meet the following criteria: a history of arrest, a member of a gang, served time in prison, a victim of a shooting, or involvement in high-risk street activity.
Who are Cure Violence Outreach Workers?
Cure Violence Outreach Workers receive extensive training from Temple University’s Center for Bioethics to identify patterns of violence and build trusting relationships with those most at risk of engaging in violent interactions. Outreach Workers are credible messengers and violence interrupters that provide trauma-informed street outreach, crisis intervention, and victim services. The Outreach Team maintains a caseload of individuals, canvasses the community, facilitates outreach, mobilizes community members, and responds to shootings in the target area.
The Approach
The success of the Cure Violence model is due in large part to the use of credible messengers—staff members from the community with similar lived experience as the participants we serve—who carry out lifesaving work by mediating conflicts, responding to shootings, engaging high-risk individuals, and shifting community norms around violence.
Interrupt Violence: Outreach Workers respond in real time to neighborhood conflicts, working to de-escalate situations and prevent retaliation before violence occurs.
Case Management: We build one-on-one relationships with individuals most impacted by violence and connect them with resources like employment and workforce development opportunities, housing supports and relocation services, nutrition education and food access, and mental health supports.
Shift Community Norms: Through community engagement with the community including outreach, events, and consistent community presence, we promote nonviolence and create safe spaces that strengthen community connection.
Donate to Cure Violence
In the Winter of 2023, NKCDC was awarded a $1.5 million Department of Justice grant to hire and train outreach workers and to establish the Cure Violence model to reduce gun violence in Kensington. Despite the success of the program and its ability to have significant impact on the reduction of gun violence in Kensington, in April 2024 NKCDC’s DOJ funds were cut due to federal funding shifts. As a result of this decision, $1 million in remaining funds were taken away from the program.
While this loss presents new challenges, it only deepens our commitment to keeping this work going in our community.
Contact the Cure Violence team
Reach out to 215-427-0350 or cureviolence@nkcdc.org to connect with the Cure Violence Outreach team.